My child seems different to everyone else

May I ask please what area you are in? My son is a highly intelligent 2 year old whom we are looking for schools for as we are concerned about the situation you have highlighted. I am based in the North East UK, and am looking to start a focus group where parents/carers of gifted children are able to come and share their experiences/views with regards to education. The purpose of this research is to gather evidence in support of opening a gifted and talented school/unit that understands the social and emotional aspects of being gifted and allows our children to learn together at their own pace with like-minded individuals in an environment where they are stimulated and happy in their learning. Please contact me if you feel you could be of any help. Thank you.

Not offering any sort of diagnosis here, but autistic children can be bright, extremely bright, sociable, funny and well behaved. The label doesn't always help as people have a picture in their mind of what it means. Your child sounds interesting and unique. When he is in Year One he might very well go on the gifted and talented register, the way foundation stage is set up at my place means that although we note gifts and talents, we allow the children to shape the curriculum and tailor learning experiences to them without much pressure to ' do that thing you are good at' over and over. His school might run on the same lines.

Your DS sounds very like mine. He is also in reception, academically he sounds like your son and your village school experience sounds similar too. I had a period of fretting about it but I feel relaxed about it now. A lot of reception still seems to be focused on play so I am going to wait and see how Year 1 pans out.

I know my son is bored with reading in school as he has told me, but they are not moving him up levels as they want to keep it at the same pace as writing. Personally I think it is easier to keep him the top group of children as they don't have staff to teach him separately. I make sure he has access to enough interesting reading material at home, go to the library etc. His current obsession is Star Wars and he spends hours pouring over the facts in the sticker books and has memorised most of them (I am SO bored of Star Wars).

I have also wondered about the autism in the past but like you I have pretty much discounted it as socially he seems average and he would not meet a lot of the criteria. However I suspect he may have some autistic traits (the fixation on routine and obsessive fact gathering particularly) and is probably at the mild end of the spectrum, but I am not worried about it.

What has helped DS is that he also plays a musical instrument. We are not musical and picked up his interest almost by chance. It has been really good for him and the 1:1 music lessons have helped him progress at his own rate so he has been sufficiently challenged. It reassures me that he is not stagnating academically, if you know what I mean. It is expensive though and we have had to make sacrifices to pursue it.

I don't have any particular advice on how to manage your situation but just wanted to reassure you there are other children like your son out there. Good luck.

There is no contradiction between being gifted and being on the autistic spectrum: even if you can prove that he is outstandingly gifted that won't tell you anything about whether he is on the spectrum or not.

Many young children have behaviour patterns that are reminiscent of the milder end of the spectrum and then grow out of them.

Again, not all highly gifted children display any unusual behaviour quirks: some are socially quite ordinary and you only realise they are gifted when you see the quality of their work.

Other children are on the spectrum, but it is just very mild. Some children I know with Aspergers have excellent eye contact and are very sociable. Some are very witty. It is a spectrum.

Check out the brillkids.com forum and you will find there are lots of 5 year olds like him, esp among those who've picked up stuff from ipad apps. Not saying he's not gifted but you can find lots of kids like that among families who are into early learning

have a read of the thread i started just below called 'what was your gifted child like when they were 2-3' if you haven't already as you might find the comments useful. Your DS sounds very similar to mine although mine is slightly younger at 3

Have you looked at Potential Plus UK? http://www.potentialplusuk.org/ They have lots of free information about gifted children and how to identify them. You can also call them with questions. Hope that helps

My DS (4 yrs old and in nursery class at our village school) is very similar to this. I know you don't think this is ASD but I think you should consider asking for this to be moved to special needs and see what feedback you get there.

As everyone will tell you, ASD is a spectrum, bleeding slowly away to neuro typical at the milder end of the spectrum. My belief is that the milder forms of ASD are just another variation and make up a normal and very healthy part of our society. The focus and logic that gives your son his abilities in one area quite naturally lead to linked traits like less flexibility in other areas (like his night time routine).

If your DS is anything like mine, he won't need much encouragement to pursue and develop himself in the areas that interest him. It might be things like the social rules of the classroom and friendship and 'abstracts' that you and the school may need to focus on.

My DS's school has recommended watching and waiting with my DS as it's not preventing him from accessing education in any way and he has no behavioural issues (just lots of quirks!)

my DS is 5 years old and in Reception.His teacher has said he is high ability but needs to work on his social skills. The school is a village school and it is all very relaxed and reception is seen as more of an extention of preschool.

He seems to have a photographic memory and can do maths in his head. He started school already knowing how to add, subtract, odd and even numbers. Patterns but school haven't really touched on it and aren't even aware that he was able to do it. Seems at parents evening we were telling her what he can do. He has been told he is the best in the class at reading and is year 1 level. They don' push them up the levels as they like their comprehension to be excellent.

At his preschool the manager thought he was gifted and had never met a child like him in 25 years of being there. He was obsessed with locks at that stage and always trying to figure out how things worked. He never actually played with toys. He found his enjoyment through the computor accessing Cbeebies online from the age of 3. He had an obsession with the Octonauts and collect them all. but as soon as he had all of them the obsession ended abrutley. He is now obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog. Plays the platform game on the xbox and will watch youtube videos of the game and then take the information to progress in the game. He is very strongly routine based and reading this

he is very alike and bed time routine has to be exact down to me asking him a certain question before he goes to bed otherwise he wont go to sleep.

Today he was unexpectedly going to be having hot dinner but had a melt down at the door as he said he wanted a packed lunch as he only has hot dinners on Mondays and Fridays so he cant it. Nothing would change his mind so off he went with a pack lunch.

At times it is so frustrating. He also can get stuck in a loop about something and just cant seem to get out of it. For example. I pop in a present to my mums and he was in the car. Got back in and he said he needed to put the present in the house. I tell him I have already done it now. but he continues to say we have to go back. I need to put it in. no reasoning will help and he just continues to say I need to go back. The loop only stops until after a period of time of just ignoring it.

I know he hasn't got Autism as he is social boy and understands wit with a good sense of humour. Good eye contact but he seems to have the obsessions and repetitive behaviour part. :-/

Our gut instinct is he is gifted but his school haven't said to us and by what we hear at parents evening it didn't seem like they are really concerned by academia is the reception class.

Im just worried his quirks will be misinterpreted

Not really sure what I gain from writing this but i just worry so much about him.